Two million views? That’s an achievement for any YouTuber, but the question is: how much will you make from those views?
We know that YouTubers who get 100K views can easily earn $470 to over $2K from their video? But what happens when you hit the 2-million mark?
The average RPM (rate per mille) on YouTube is $5-$6. That’s for 1,000 views. For a single view? It’s about $0.005 – $0.006. It’s safe to say that a single view won’t earn you much, but as those views rack up, so will your earnings.
It’s important to remember that RPMs will vary from one channel to the next. Your niche and your audience’s location will have a big impact on how much you earn with your content.
Let’s look at some of the top paying niches and real-life earnings reports from YouTubers.
How Much Do Top YouTube Niches Pay Per 2 Million Views?
| Top Niches | Average RPM | Pay per 2M Views |
| Finance | $21.20 | $42,400 |
| Technology | $9.72 | $19,440 |
| Lifestyle/Fashion | $9.72 | $19,440 |
| Business | $8.07 | $16,140 |
| Crypto | $7.57 | $15,140 |
| Home Improvement | $4.76 | $9,520 |
Remember that these are just averages. You may get paid more or less, depending on things like:
- Where your audience is located
- The length of your videos
- Audience demographics
Still, there’s no denying that these are impressive earnings. Are they accurate? Let’s see what real YouTubers are earning.
How Much Does YouTube Pay for 2 Million Views for Long-form Videos?
1. Andrew Thorn Improvements
Andrew Thorn Improvements posted a viral video of his DIY bathroom transformation that put his YouTube channel on the map. It attracted over 2 million views (2.3 million to be exact).
How much did he earn? $3,041.03 for the 2.3 million views at an RPM of $1.31. For 2 million exactly, his earnings would be about $2,620.
The first day his video went viral, he earned $76. Once the hype died down, he was steadily earning about $10 a day from his video.
His earnings were enough to pay for half of the bathroom renovation in his viral video.
Andrew’s video is worth watching because he goes over things like CPMs, RPMs and other interesting metrics for his channel.
2. Sean Daniel
Sean Daniel has a few videos going over a million views and he shows people how to play the guitar. He’s obviously doing something that he loves, and 500k subscribers later, he’s making great money, too.
Back in 2012-2013, he wanted to show students how to play chords.
Sean didn’t want to be a YouTuber and wanted to simply send the link to his students. What he didn’t know is that this single video would hit 2 million views and $5,992.29 in revenue.
3. Brainplosin
Brainplosin shared, just a few days ago, that for 2 million views, he earned $3,573.15. What’s his content about? He wants to share mind-blowing content and seems to just be having fun with it.
He has gone viral with a few videos, most of them under 5 minutes, and the video in question is about:
- Biting into an apple juice
Seriously. If you bite into the apple juice container, it sounds like an apple. He saw the trend on TikTok, made a video and then made thousands of dollars off of it.
And yes, it really sounds like he’s biting into an apple.
4. Ali Abdaal
Ali Abdaal’s YouTube channel has been wildly successful. In 2023, his revenue hit the $1 million mark. His average RPM? About $5. In this video, Ali shares his revenue for the channel’s top performing video, which got 9.8 million views. How much did he earn? $191,258.16.
But that’s for 9.8 million views. What about 2 million? In this case, the earnings would be $39,032.
It helps that Ali is in a really profitable niche: finance and productivity. That top-performing video was all about passive income ideas.
Ali also shares the earnings from a video that’s on a slightly odd topic: how to type really fast. That video got 8.2 million views and earned him $25,143.17. For 2 million views, his earnings would have been $4,055.35.
As you can see, niche really does play a huge role in how much you earn with your content.
5. Greg Preece
Greg has a lot of content on making money, and what he did was analyze a bunch of channels and details how much 1 million views made a ton of different creators. He found that 2 million views in 2021 earned:
- $13,000 in tech
- $24,700 in finance
- $14,400 in cooking
You’ll find that some categories are certainly skewed, such as beauty, which he said makes just $1,000 per million views (that is certainly not the case).
6. n8wealth
N8dev reveals that his video went viral before he was actually monetized, and then when he could get monetized, he was too lazy to actually apply. But as he explains, he regrets his decision because he made really good money off of his video.
After missing 350,000 views to be monetized, he finally switched on monetization.
For around 2 million views, he earned $3,770.65.
Nate doesn’t show his face, which a ton of people are doing now, and he shows you how he makes games.
What’s the video that made him the most money? It’s a four-minute video about making a game with a single line of code. The video is just a few minutes long, so if it was longer, he would have likely doubled his earnings.
7. DorianGroup82
Dorian is all about sports. If you go to his channel, you’ll see that he has nearly two thousand videos and has built himself an awesome following. He posts videos on a lot of sports-related material now, but he also covers:
- Music, such as Lil Wayne selling his masters for $100 million
- T-Pain exposing a music industry secret
What’s great about Dorian’s channel is that you’ll see a lot of thumbnails that look similar. He made a template, ran with it and people still watch his content because it’s great.
Dorian broke down his earnings for his entire channel based on 13 million views, but with a little math, we figured out he earned $4,612 per million views or $9,224 for 2 million views.
How Much Does YouTube Pay for 2 Million Views for Shorts?
We had a challenging time finding examples of people who shared their revenue with just 2 million views, but don’t worry – we did the math for you. As you’ll quickly see, these creators didn’t earn much from shorts, but that’s not their fault.
Shorts don’t make the platform much money, so the revenue is very low.
1. TheInsanePatient2
If you want to master Shorts, this is a great creator to follow because he is all about Shorts. You’ll notice that he had 8 million views and earned $169.18 on those views. Unfortunately, that’s not very much and is even less when you remember it’s 8 million views.
For 2 million views, he was paid: $42.30.
However, he did gain 5,700 subscribers per two million views. In terms of RPM, he made just $0.02 per 1,000 views, which is very low. If he had all of these views on longer videos, he would have earned 100 times more revenue on a very, very low paid niche.
2. VidiQ
The channel “vidQ” shares how much they made with their 1 million Short views. And while they were super excited by Shorts, the problem is that they earn just $0.6 RPM on Shorts.
And per 2 million views, they would earn $116.46.
TheInsanePatient2 would certainly love to make this kind of money in his niche, but compared to any long form video, this is still a very low figure. In comparison, the channel makes over $5 RPM on its long form content.
3. CaffeinatedBlogger
CaffeinatedBlogger does a really remarkable job of breaking down his revenue on Shorts because he shows earnings from:
- Ads
- YouTube Premium
- Watch Page ads
And how much did he make? With an RPM of just $0.03, he earned around $60 for all two million views.
Revenue from Shorts isn’t great, but if you’re showing short clips from content that you’re already making, it’s a small bonus and will add to your overall revenue for the year.
YouTube can make you a ton of money if you have 2 million views on your long form video. If you like making Shorts, don’t forget that they’re a great for getting subscribers. Creators can rapidly build a following with Shorts, but you do need to funnel them to your long form video to make real money.
